“Thinking about it, I was never actually scared about it, because always fans are going to be giving me abuse and whatnot over it,” he added.

“You just kind of look at it and laugh, you think, ‘Yeah, all right, as if you’re going to come and do that type of thing’.”

Rice’s England team-mate Marcus Rashford was racially abused on social media after missing a penalty in Manchester United’s defeat by Crystal Palace in August and has said he fears football is “moving backwards”.

Social media platform Twitter says it had “taken action” on “more than 700 examples of hateful conduct” in the two weeks leading up to England’s win against Bulgaria.

Twitter said it had also met “directly affected” clubs, the Professional Footballers’ Association and Kick it Out in an attempt to “tackle the issue collectively”.